Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Specter in introducing the Wireless 411 Privacy Act of 2003. About 150 million Americans subscribe to wireless telephone service. They rely on wireless service to stay in touch with friends, family, and the workplace. As a cellular phone user myself, I value the privacy of my wireless number. I want to have control over who can reach me on my cell phone. However, the wireless phone industry is planning to list customers in a wireless phone directory starting sometime next year. The Specter- Boxer bill would protect consumers by providing them with the right not to have their cell phone number listed in the directory and the right not to be charged a fee for being unlisted. As we saw with the strong consumer support for the right to keep a cell phone when you switch carriers, consumers consider their cell phone number their property. It is not the property of the carrier to hand out to whomever the carrier wishes, and the carrier should not be allowed to charge consumers for the right to keep that number private. This is especially important when you consider that wireless users pay for both their incoming and outgoing calls. Having your number listed could easily lead to receiving calls that you did not want but for which you will have to pay. That seems wrong to me. To date, the wireless phone industry has been unclear on how they will address these valid concerns when they move forward with their directory plans next year. To avoid any confusion or uncertainty, Congress must make clear to the cell phone companies that the rights of consumers to keep their cell phone numbers private is paramount.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, last summer I visited Del Norte County--in the most northern part of my State. Del Norte County has been hit particularly hard during these tough economic times. Unemployment in the county tops 7.6 percent. Local officials are working hard to revitalize the economy, and one of their top priorities is to renovate Del Norte County's airport. And they would like federal assistance. However, under the federal Airport Improvement Program, federal grants must be matched with local funds. In general, I support that policy. But, for communities facing severe economic problems, this match is prohibitive. It's a bit of a Catch-22. The Federal funds that would help the local economy rebound are not available because the local economy is in such bad shape that the community can't match the federal grants. The bill that I am introducing today would address this by eliminating the match required under the Airport Improvement Program for economically depressed communities. To be considered an economically depressed community, a community would have a variety of ways to quality. First, for the last two years, the unemployment rate could be one percent higher than the nation's unemployment rate. Second, the per capita income of the community could be 80 percent or less of the nation's per capita income. Or third, the Secretary of Transportation could decide that a particular community had a special needs. These criteria are consistent with other provisions of federal law. I believe that by waiving the matching grant in communities that have a high unemployment rate or low per capita income, we will help to rejuvenate their business climate and reinvigorate their local economies. With a little bit of help, I am very optimistic about the future of Del Norte County and other areas in California and across the Nation that are facing tough economic times. This bill will provide that little bit of help.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today, I am proud to introduce the HOPE Youth Pregnancy Prevention Act. While teen pregnancy rates in the United States have dropped significantly in the last decade, we still have one of the highest rates among industrialized nations. American teens are twice as likely to become pregnant as teenagers in Great Britain and four times more likely than teens in Sweden and France. At the same time, the teen pregnancy rates for Hispanic and other minority teens in the United States are significantly higher than the national average. The HOPE Youth Pregnancy Prevention Act would provide resources to help prevent teen pregnancy among at-risk and minority youth. Specifically, my bill would provide grants to States, localities, and non- governmental organizations for teenage pregnancy prevention activities targeted to areas with large ethnic minorities and other at-risk youth. These grants could be used for a number of activities, including youth development, work-related interventions and other educational activities, parental involvement, teenage outreach and clinical services. The bill would authorize $30 million a year for five years for these grants. The bill would also provide grants to States and non-governmental organizations to establish multimedia public awareness campaigns to combat teenage pregnancy. These campaigns would aim to prevent teen pregnancy through TV, radio and print ads, billboards, posters, and the Internet. Priority would be given to those activities that target ethnic minorities and other at-risk youth. The bill would authorize $20 million a year for 5 years. Over the past 10 years, we have made progress reducing teen pregnancy. But out work is not done. We need to strengthen our efforts, especially among Hispanic and other minority youth. I encourage my colleagues to support this effort.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today, I am introducing the ``Small Business State Mandated Health Insurance Assistance Act.'' The legislation would provide a tax credit to small businesses in states where the law mandates that they provide health insurance to their employees. The credit would be for 50 percent of the amount the employer spends providing health insurance for his or her employees. In California 6.4 million people are uninsured. That's more than 18 percent of the state. To deal with the issue, the state legislature recently passed a law mandating that employers provide their workers with health insurance. Many smaller businesses have told me that they do not object to the law itself, but that they will have a hard time financially complying with the mandate--especially in these tough economic times. Furthermore, there is concern that neighboring States without such a mandate will recruit our small businesses entrepreneurs to move to their states where they would not have to provide insurance for their workers. While businesses can currently deduct from federal taxes, as costs of doing businesses, the costs of the health insurance provided to their employees, this assistance is simply not large enough to provide the help that small businesses truly need. That is why I am introducing this bill today. I encourage my colleagues to join me in this effort.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Specter in introducing the Wireless 411 Privacy Act of 2003. About 150 million Americans subscribe to wireless telephone service. They rely on wireless service to stay in touch with friends, family, and the workplace. As a cellular phone user myself, I value the privacy of my wireless number. I want to have control over who can reach me on my cell phone. However, the wireless phone industry is planning to list customers in a wireless phone directory starting sometime next year. The Specter- Boxer bill would protect consumers by providing them with the right not to have their cell phone number listed in the directory and the right not to be charged a fee for being unlisted. As we saw with the strong consumer support for the right to keep a cell phone when you switch carriers, consumers consider their cell phone number their property. It is not the property of the carrier to hand out to whomever the carrier wishes, and the carrier should not be allowed to charge consumers for the right to keep that number private. This is especially important when you consider that wireless users pay for both their incoming and outgoing calls. Having your number listed could easily lead to receiving calls that you did not want but for which you will have to pay. That seems wrong to me. To date, the wireless phone industry has been unclear on how they will address these valid concerns when they move forward with their directory plans next year. To avoid any confusion or uncertainty, Congress must make clear to the cell phone companies that the rights of consumers to keep their cell phone numbers private is paramount.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, last summer I visited Del Norte County--in the most northern part of my State. Del Norte County has been hit particularly hard during these tough economic times. Unemployment in the county tops 7.6 percent. Local officials are working hard to revitalize the economy, and one of their top priorities is to renovate Del Norte County's airport. And they would like federal assistance. However, under the federal Airport Improvement Program, federal grants must be matched with local funds. In general, I support that policy. But, for communities facing severe economic problems, this match is prohibitive. It's a bit of a Catch-22. The Federal funds that would help the local economy rebound are not available because the local economy is in such bad shape that the community can't match the federal grants. The bill that I am introducing today would address this by eliminating the match required under the Airport Improvement Program for economically depressed communities. To be considered an economically depressed community, a community would have a variety of ways to quality. First, for the last two years, the unemployment rate could be one percent higher than the nation's unemployment rate. Second, the per capita income of the community could be 80 percent or less of the nation's per capita income. Or third, the Secretary of Transportation could decide that a particular community had a special needs. These criteria are consistent with other provisions of federal law. I believe that by waiving the matching grant in communities that have a high unemployment rate or low per capita income, we will help to rejuvenate their business climate and reinvigorate their local economies. With a little bit of help, I am very optimistic about the future of Del Norte County and other areas in California and across the Nation that are facing tough economic times. This bill will provide that little bit of help.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today, I am proud to introduce the HOPE Youth Pregnancy Prevention Act. While teen pregnancy rates in the United States have dropped significantly in the last decade, we still have one of the highest rates among industrialized nations. American teens are twice as likely to become pregnant as teenagers in Great Britain and four times more likely than teens in Sweden and France. At the same time, the teen pregnancy rates for Hispanic and other minority teens in the United States are significantly higher than the national average. The HOPE Youth Pregnancy Prevention Act would provide resources to help prevent teen pregnancy among at-risk and minority youth. Specifically, my bill would provide grants to States, localities, and non- governmental organizations for teenage pregnancy prevention activities targeted to areas with large ethnic minorities and other at-risk youth. These grants could be used for a number of activities, including youth development, work-related interventions and other educational activities, parental involvement, teenage outreach and clinical services. The bill would authorize $30 million a year for five years for these grants. The bill would also provide grants to States and non-governmental organizations to establish multimedia public awareness campaigns to combat teenage pregnancy. These campaigns would aim to prevent teen pregnancy through TV, radio and print ads, billboards, posters, and the Internet. Priority would be given to those activities that target ethnic minorities and other at-risk youth. The bill would authorize $20 million a year for 5 years. Over the past 10 years, we have made progress reducing teen pregnancy. But out work is not done. We need to strengthen our efforts, especially among Hispanic and other minority youth. I encourage my colleagues to support this effort.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I share with my colleagues the memory of former Siskiyou County Sheriff Charles ``Charlie'' Edward Byrd who passed away on September 23, 2003 in Weed, CA. Charles Byrd had a remarkable career in law enforcement in Siskiyou County, and will be remembered as the first black sheriff in California. A native and lifetime resident of Weed, Charles Byrd was born on July 6, 1947. He attended local schools and was a standout football player earning the ``Lineman of the Year'' honor from Weed High School in 1965. In 1967, while attending the College of the Siskiyous, Charles Byrd began his career in law enforcement as a reserve police officer with the Weed Police Department and became a full-time officer the following year. In April of 1975 he was promoted to Police Chief, and in 1986 he was elected Sheriff of Siskiyou County. Charles Byrd's career in law enforcement broke color barriers as he was both the first black police officer in the town of Weed, and the first black sheriff in California. During his 16 years as Sheriff, Charlie Byrd's motto for the department was ``We Can.'' This motto led to countless improvements for Siskiyou County, including the development of the Siskiyou County Inter-Agency Narcotics Task Force, expansion of public safety programs, establishment of the Domestic Violence Response Team and Advisory Committee, formation of a detective bureau and expansion of technology and training within the department. Dedication to his community was also a top priority for Charles Byrd. In addition to making the Sheriff's Department accessible to the community at public events, he was a member of several professional and community organizations. Among the many associations to which Sheriff Byrd devoted his time were: the California Peace Officers' Association, California Police Chiefs' Association, Weed Chamber of Commerce, Weed Rotary Club, Habitat for Humanity, Weed Baptist Church, College of the Siskiyous Auxiliary Foundation Board of Directors, California State Sheriffs' Association and Western States Sheriffs' Association. Siskiyou County Supervisor LaVada Erickson commented, ``Sheriff Byrd looked upon Siskiyou County as an extension of his personal family, and we were treated as such. Law enforcement was his first pledge and commitment. He was very aware of our at-risk youth and was committed to encouraging the continuation of education for the enhancement it would bring to their lives. He was a quiet giant of a man with a heart that contained only the best for Siskiyou.'' Charles Byrd is survived by his mother, Eddie Byrd; sisters Ella Byrd, Charlene Byrd, Rose Applewhite; and brothers Larry Byrd, Arnold Byrd and Al Bearden. Sheriff Charles Byrd will always be remembered for his many contributions to law enforcement and to the betterment of Siskiyou County. His legacy will be cherished by his community for years to come.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object--of course, I will not object--I would like to be the next Democrat on the list to speak because Senator Daschle had committed that to me but he is not in the Chamber at this time. I ask unanimous consent that I be the next Democrat to speak, up to 7 minutes, after Senator Graham, and of course yielding to the other side.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, let me tell you where we are because people watching this debate may be confused on what has happened. On our side we have made a point of order against this bill because it busts the budget. Know where does it bust the budget? Does it bust the budget by giving a more generous prescription drug plan to our seniors? No. It busts the budget by giving away billions of dollars to the HMOs. It also busts the budget because it allows a big deduction from the wealthiest and healthiest people to set up what they call HSAs, health service accounts, and to be able to deduct that money. What that does is, it raises the premiums for everybody else, taking those people out of the insurance pool. So make no mistake about it, when the Senator from Iowa says we are terrible on our side because we don't want to spend more money, we are willing to spend the funds on the senior citizens' prescription drug benefit. We are not willing to throw it away on HMOs and on the tax breaks for the wealthiest people who are already doing just fine, thank you very much. Having said that, there is a real benefit to ensuring that this bill stops in its tracks by supporting this point of order. In order to do that, we have to vote no on the motion to waive it. So if we prevail, if the other side does not get 60 votes, this bill will go back and get started again. It will come back to us with a better prescription drug plan. It will come back to us with less confusion, less bureaucracy and the rest. The underlying bill hurts seniors; 6 million of them will pay more for prescriptions than they do today. There is a cruel asset test in here where you may have to sell off your wedding band to get help. You may have to sell off your car if it is worth more than $4,500 to get help with prescription drugs. And it seems to me selling off family heirlooms is not something we want to do to our seniors. In many of our States that have big metropolitan areas--and I see the Senators from Connecticut, Illinois, and New Jersey, I am from California--our seniors will be forced into demonstration projects. That means they will either have been forced into an HMO to get a better break on their monthly premium or have to pay more to stay in traditional Medicare where they have the choice of a doctor. It increases Medicare premiums for middle and upper class people. Some people may say that is a great thing. Let me tell you a couple of bad things about that. Again, what will happen is, these people may well leave Medicare, which means the pool shrinks and the premiums go up for everybody else. The other problem is, these premiums are not indexed. If this had been in place in 1980, I think we figured it would be people with $33,000 a year who would have to pay higher premiums. We know that is a low number. There will be confusion and fear. I will talk about that. And there will be large benefit shutdowns which are daunting and penalize innocent seniors. I say to the occupant of the Chair, something maybe he has not yet found in this bill because, look at the size of this thing. This is the size of it. It is hard to lift it. If you look at this, hidden in there it says the Secretary of HHS can demand from the IRS your tax return or mine or any of our constituents to just make sure they are not cheating on a lot of the rules that go along with this. In California, the minute this bill goes into effect, I have a lot of problems: 867,000 sick low-income seniors will have worse coverage; 250,000 retirees will lose their more generous prescription drug coverage; 296,000 fewer low-income seniors will qualify for low-income protections than under the Senate bill that I was pleased to vote for; 230,000 Medicare beneficiaries will pay higher Part B premiums; and 1.4 million seniors will be forced or could well be forced into one of those demonstration projects with HMOs. I don't have a lot of time left so I want to leave you with this chart that I made up, sort of wrote it myself. A lot of it is in my own hand. I have to tell you, I used this chart on Saturday. My phones have been ringing off the hook. This is what the senior citizens now have to understand. I would urge my colleagues to look at every expression on this chart and you tell me if you understand what these things are: Transitional assistance, there is one thing seniors better learn because they are transitioning into something different; MSAs, medical savings accounts; risk adjustment, you are going to hear about that; benefit shutdown, that is when you know longer have any benefit, and Senator Daschle was so eloquent on that point. If you have $5,000 worth of prescriptions, you are going to have to pay $4,000 toward that $5,000. You can get a better deal with a discount card. If I was a local pharmacist, I would just say: Come on in, Medicare patients. I will give you a discount. Don't bother filling out all the forms that will be necessary with this so-called great benefit that the other side says they have given. There is a huge benefit shutdown. Coverage gap is another expression to explain. There are copayments, risk corridors. You all know what HMOs are. You better know it well because there are going to be a lot more of them. There is MA-PD plans, plan retention funding; MA regions; donut holes--and you can't eat those donut holes; those are gaps in coverage--premiums, you all know what that means. Let me tell you, it is going to be confusing. You won't know what group you fall in and what your premium is. Income related, HSAs, wraparounds, national bonus payments, stabilization funds--that is a nice name for the slush funds that are going to the HMOs, and one reason that budget point of order ought to be sustained--Medicare advantage competition, annual out-of-pocket threshold. Seniors, you better learn what that is. You are going to have to keep notes on every little penny you spend. By the way, if you happen to be on a prescription drug that is not in the Medicare formulary, but it was in your Medicaid formulary--I don't even have the time to go through all this. One of my favorites is ``clawback.'' Half of my colleagues probably don't know what that means. States are prohibited from helping their seniors who are very poor pay their copayments. The States are prohibited and they must pay back the Federal Government. So seniors, pick up the phone, call your Senator. Tell them to bring this bill back to the drawing board. It is a huge bill. Only a tiny portion of it is a prescription drug benefit. Mr. President, let's get rid of this turkey in time for Thanksgiving. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am pleased to recognize the 33rd anniversary of the Fresno Metro Ministry in Fresno, CA. More than three decades ago, Fresno Metro Ministry began tackling some of Fresno's most difficult social problems. In the 1970's the ministry built a coalition of religious and secular organizations that worked to alleviate the hardships caused by racism through a variety of efforts, ranging from empowerment programs to community projects. Through its youth task force the ministry began the alternative sentencing program that provided young individuals with alternative punishments that worked to redirect their lives in a positive direction. Understanding that a good home breeds a successful child the ministry developed ``Parenting With Justice'' training that helped minority parents teach their children to deal with challenges in their lives, thereby empowering the entire family. As the ministry grew, so did its vision. With its success came a broader focus. In the 1980's the Fresno Metro Ministry began to focus on city wide issues. The ministry led in the creation of a City of Fresno Human Relations Commission that celebrates the rich cultural and religious diversity in the Fresno area and mediates differences between and among groups. The commission has worked to identify and address patterns of discrimination. In the last decade, Fresno Metro Ministry became a leader in the community hunger coalition. It also helped break a log-jam that slowed progress on the construction of the new Regional Medical Center campus in downtown Fresno. When Fresno and the Central Valley were suffering the effects of the 1998 freeze, the Fresno Metro Ministry coordinated with other groups to provide relief to people who had lost their jobs during this difficult time. I also want to give special recognition to the leadership of the Reverend Walt Parry. For the last 18 years, under Reverend Parry's direction, the ministry has made a great difference in the lives of many people. He and the Fresno Metro Ministry deserve the recognition they are receiving during this 33rd anniversary observance.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Of course.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, this debate so far has been very illuminating, in a way fascinating, to see how different Members of the Senate view the bill that is before us. I hope that America's seniors are watching this debate. I hope they are listening. I hope they will make up their own minds. There are many groups out there who are going to give their opinions, and I respect them all. But I think if you just go to the debate and you listen to all sides of it, seniors will come up with their own conclusions. As a matter of fact, I also hope people in their fifties and forties are watching this debate because many of the changes that will be made, if this bill becomes law, are going to impact people in their fifties, people in their forties. Let's face it, Medicare is a program that impacts all families because the children of senior citizens oftentimes bear the burden, if there are health problems. Of course, they care deeply about their families. We know that Medicare is a nationwide health plan for aged and certain disabled Americans, and it was created 40 years ago for seniors to offer them access to good quality health care. There was a huge debate at that time about whether this was the right thing to do. But people looked around and saw that our seniors were in trouble. They were spending their money on health care, didn't have anything left, oftentimes had to move in with their families. Their families had to pick up their health care bills, and it was very difficult. This program has fulfilled its promise. Is it perfect in every way? Of course not. What program is? What corporation is? What person is? But Medicare has saved many lives and has made the golden years golden for a lot of our seniors. That is why they feel so strongly about it. I have been listening to some of the call-in shows. I have heard seniors identify themselves as Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. They are worried about the changes that are about to hit the system, and so am I. The one thing I think everyone agrees on is that there ought to be a prescription drug benefit. At least I think most of us believe that from both sides of the aisle. We know this cost is heavy on our seniors. We know drug prices are skyrocketing because, unfortunately and very sadly, we don't allow drug reimportation from places like Canada and Mexico, although I have to tell you that in my State, people are going to Mexico. I received a letter from a constituent of mine from San Marcos, CA, earlier this year. She told me that her annual cost for prescription drugs this year will top $10,000. Think about that, $10,000. How do our seniors deal with this when they are retired? A retired physician from Marina del Rey told me that a pill he takes for his heart disease went up 600 percent, from $15 a month to $85. For seniors who have to take an assortment of medicines to manage their chronic diseases, the costs really start to add up. Very sad to say, in this bill there is virtually no cost containment. Even though the House version said reimportation from Canada was a good idea, this has not happened. We will continue to pay the highest drug prices in the world. It is very sad, indeed. The provisions on generic drugs were watered down a bit. We have some in there but not what they should be. For all the reasons that I talked about--the fact that I feel deep compassion for my constituents who have to pay these huge sums for medicines--I voted for the Senate bill. The Senate bill left here. I thought it made some sense. So let's look at what the Senate bill did for our seniors. It had about six things that it did that I thought were really important. First, there was a modest benefit for seniors that were hardest hit by the costly prescription drugs. That benefit was a lot better than the benefit that is currently before us. I will go into the differences. The benefit that is before us is so weak, it barely has a pulse. It is barely worth filling out the forms. It is barely worth your time. You could probably do better if you become friendly with your pharmacy down the road. They will probably give you a better deal. The benefit before us, unlike the benefit we voted on, is this: If you have $5,100 worth of drug costs, you will pay $4,020 for those drugs. In the meanwhile, you will have to figure out what are your deductibles, what are your copays, filling out the forms, being nervous, getting notified that you no longer have the drug benefit because there is a benefit shutdown, which I will get into later. So think about it. You have a $5,000 drug bill, and you are paying $4,000. And you are going through probably bureaucratic hell to get that thousand dollars off. So the benefit, when we got the bill, we voted it out. I voted for it. I wanted it. It was a modest benefit but a decent benefit. It was much better than this one. We will get into that later. Secondly, all seniors were guaranteed a Medicare prescription drug benefit if they didn't have two private plans in their area. So you had a good fallback. If you didn't have two private drug plans competing for your business, could you say: Forget this. I can go to Medicare. Third, Medicare could have bargained for lower prescription drug costs. Now, why is this important? Just look at the Veterans' Administration. They can get way lower costs for the drug benefits for their veterans because they represent millions of veterans. Therefore, they have bargaining power. It is not like if I walked into a pharmacy myself and said: Hi, I am a veteran, can you lower my drug prices. And the pharmacist looks at me and says: Well, no. But if I bring millions of people into the store, the pharmacist is going to say: You know, now I can talk to you about some bargain prices. That is what we have done with the VA. In the original bill that came out of the Senate, Medicare could have bargained. We will talk about the current bill in a minute. Then, No. 4, there were steps to privatize Medicare, but they were minor steps. They were balanced by a $6 billion sum that was added to Medicare. So while they gave the private plans $6 billion in the Senate bill to ``encourage'' them to stay in the Medicare business, I didn't agree with that. When I think about competition, I don't think about paying people to compete. I didn't think that is what capitalism is. I was a stockbroker. That is news to me. To me competition is what it says. You come in, you see you have a chance to make a profit, and you compete. Well, we were giving them $6 billion. I wasn't happy about it, but I felt that, all in all, because we balanced it and gave $6 billion to Medicare to add prevention and some other very important benefits, it was worth it. So just sum that up. I want to be clear here. I supported the Medicare prescription drug bill that was before the Senate because it was a decent benefit for seniors. It gave them about a third off their drugs. So it gave you a third off of your drugs. I thought that was a good benefit. You paid two-thirds and you got a third off. Again, I thought it should have been better. It was modest. I wasn't thrilled with it. I tried to have amendments to close the benefit shutdown, to bring the benefit up to 50 percent, but I did not succeed in that effort. All seniors were guaranteed a Medicare drug benefit, that fallback, if they didn't have two private drug plans competing. Frankly, I wanted a Medicare fallback for everybody. I remember the debate. But they convinced me to compromise. I wasn't thrilled, but I voted for it. Medicare could have bargained for lower prices for drugs. I assumed that would be part of what we would do. We didn't prohibit it. The steps to privatize Medicare, to incentivize HMOs to stay in the Medicare business, were balanced by $6 billion added to Medicare for some important new benefits. The last thing is, for the lowest income seniors, they got prescription drugs at no cost. That was a wonderful thing in the Senate bill. The poorest of the poor people who worked all their lives and found themselves in a horrible situation today would have gotten drugs at no cost. For all those reasons, I was very pleased in the end that I was able to move that bill forward. I want to show you something I hope you can appreciate, as I hold this bill up for a minute. The bill itself that has now come back to us is very heavy. Here it is. This is the bill that is before us today. This bill I am holding is 678 pages. How much of this is the prescription drug benefit? It is 181 pages. What does that tell you? It tells you that most of this bill has nothing to do with prescription drugs. Think about it. We sent a prescription drug bill into the conference committee to come back to us, and here it is. This yellow tab shows me where it is. This is the prescription drug benefit. It is 181 pages. The balance of this bill is way more, 5 times more. Think about it. If the folks who brought you this bill were sincere about giving you a prescription drug benefit, why did they then use that as an excuse to begin changing Medicare--changing Medicare in ways that are perplexing, that are going to be difficult to understand, and the rest? Now, I am not, generally speaking, someone who is paranoid about things. But I have to tell you, I am when I hear Newt Gingrich, praising all 600 pages of this bill, who said in 1995: Now, we don't get rid of it [Medicare] in round one because we don't think that that's politically smart, and we don't think that's the right way to go through a transition. But we believe Medicare is going to wither on the vine, because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it. Voluntarily. If you mess up Medicare and you make it confusing and start doing the things that they do in this bill, Newt Gingrich will be proven right. Why do you think he went over to the caucus on the other side, in the House, and talked to the Republicans who didn't like the bill? Because they thought it was too good to seniors. He said: No, it is not. Trust me. Would I lead you astray? That is Newt Gingrich. The senior citizens in this country, in my view, are the smartest of the folks when it comes to Medicare. They know it. They get it. They understand Social Security and they understand Medicare. They understand when Newt Gingrich said that Medicare should ``wither on the vine,'' and that this isn't something they want to see happen. Well, folks, please listen. ``We don't have to get rid of it in round one,'' Newt said, ``because we don't think it's politically smart.'' So what did they do? They take a prescription drug benefit that is popular--by the way, it is voluntary, but I will talk about that because it is not voluntary if you are on Medicaid, and it is not voluntary when you find out that your pension plan has dropped your prescription drug coverage because then you will have nothing. You will be forced into it. It is not voluntary for those folks. But I can tell you that this is just what Newt Gingrich planned. You cannot do it all at once. Not in round 1. We have to go through a ``transition.'' Remember that word because it shows up in this bill-- ``transition.'' So here is prescription drugs, and here is the withering on the vine. A lot of the people who fought Medicare in the beginning are embracing this bill. Do you think they had a change of heart? Do you think those of us who built our careers on protecting seniors have somehow gone wacko on you by saying that this bill does more harm than good? Think about the Senators who are standing up here and extolling the virtues of this bill. One of them was here before and he said that people on the other side are saying we are trying to destroy Medicare. How ridiculous, he said. That's crazy. We would never do that. Then he launched into a harsh criticism of Medicare and how it needs to change. Another, I thought, belied his point of view when he stood up and said--it is on the record from this afternoon--we need to get away from the ``command and control'' of Medicare. Well, I have news for the Senator from Texas, who said that. In Medicare, do you know who is in command and control? The senior citizens. That senior citizen can go anywhere--to the doctor of choice. That is the beauty of the Medicare system. They are in command and control. What this bill does is start the unraveling of that command and control and gives it to a whole new system that is so confusing that I would assure you, when you begin to hear the words and the acronyms associated with this new system, if you went up to any Senator and asked him or her a question about it, not one of them would pass the test of understanding every acronym--not even close. So the Senate bill benefited seniors. What we have before us is quite different. To me, the saddest thing about this bill is that it turned a modest, but decent, benefit for seniors into an enormous benefit for the largest pharmaceutical companies and HMOs in America. Here is what we have now in the bill. This is what we have now. The bill benefits drug companies and HMOs. First of all, the bill sets up a slush fund of $14 billion for HMOs. I have to say something here. The deficit that we are facing in our country today is nothing short of an abomination. From the minute this President took over until today, we have seen deficits as far as the eye can see and balanced budgets turn into $500 billion-a-year deficits every year. But the folks in the conference committee found $14 billion to give to those profitable corporations in America. Why do you think that is the case? There is an article today in the Washington Post that tries to explain it. This is the headline on the front page: 2 Bills Would Benefit Top Bush Fundraisers. Executives' Companies Could Get Billions. This is the selling of America. I want to quote from this article. More than three dozen of President Bush's major fundraisers are affiliated with companies that stand to benefit from the passage of two central pieces of the administration's legislative agenda: the energy and Medicare bills. We stopped the Energy bill. I don't know how long we will be able to hold that, but the Energy bill is a clear-cut case. We talked about that the other day, and now there is the Medicare bill. Continuing the quote: The energy bill provides billions of dollars in benefits to companies run by at least 22 executives and their spouses who have qualified as either ``Pioneers'' or ``Rangers''-- That is what they call the big fat cats, Pioneers or Rangers---- as well as to the clients of at least 15 lobbyists and their spouses who have achieved similar status as fundraisers. At least 24 Rangers and Pioneers could benefit from the Medicare bill-- Twenty-four Rangers and Pioneers, and those are the people who give the most money---- could benefit from the Medicare bill as executives of companies or lobbyists working for them, including eight who have clients affected by both bills. Talk about hitting the lottery. They benefit from the Energy bill and this bill. We know where the money is going. It is going out of the Federal Treasury to the fat cats. Face it. Unfortunately for the folks around here, we know now. We have it. How about this? Hank McKinnell-- He may be a lovely man; this is not a personal attack on him---- chairman and CEO of Pfizer, has pledged to raise at least $200,000 for Bush's reelection, although he is not yet listed as a Pioneer or Ranger. Pioneer Munr Kazmir, who runs a direct-mail drug company called Direct Meds Inc., estimates that he has about 100,000 customers on Medicare who will have more money to buy drugs from his company. ``We know the patients, we know how important this bill is,'' he said. Follow the money. Dress it up any way you want. Talk about how great this bill is. Follow the money. I hope seniors are watching this tonight. They will make up their own minds. They are calling my office. My phones are overwhelmed. What are they running on this? About 1,000 calls to 200 calls against this bill. For every 100 yeses, there are 1,000 nos. Seniors are smart. They trust the AARP. Now they are finding out that the head of the AARP wrote the foreword to Newt Gingrich's book. Now they are finding out that the AARP gets 60 percent of their funds from selling insurance. Now they are finding out that the head of the AARP represented big drug companies. Follow the money. There is a $14 billion slush fund for HMOs at a time when we don't have money to fully fund education. We can't fully fund education, but we can find $14 billion for a slush fund for HMOs. They don't call it a slush fund. They call it a few other names--a stabilization fund. They call it a stabilization fund. Over 7 years, HMOs get $14 billion. This includes $10 billion in direct subsidies to HMOs handed out at the discretion of the head of the agency overseeing Medicare. How would you like to be that guy? At his whim, this bureaucrat can write checks to HMOs to bribe them to participate in Medicare. In addition, there are nearly $4 billion of payments to the HMOs that already participate in Medicare just to bribe them to stay in Medicare. What kind of capitalism are we living in this country when we have to pay the private sector extra money when they went in the business in the first place? Things have changed. When I was a stockbroker, it wasn't that way. We didn't give corporations the kind of welfare we are giving them today. This is corporate welfare. Follow the money to the Presidential campaigns and you will get a very interesting story. This $14 billion slush fund is particularly egregious when you consider that Medicare already pays HMOs more than the per-patient cost of traditional Medicare. Let me repeat that. HMOs are getting paid more than the traditional Medicare. Do my colleagues know why? The overhead in Medicare is very small. Do we know exactly--is it 2 or 3 percent? Anyway, we do not pay CEOs millions and millions of dollars. They are taking that money right off the top and lining their pockets. Oh, but why not? They are nice people, give them $14 billion. It is not that they are so great, these HMOs. People get the runaround. They do not get the care they need. People want their traditional Medicare. Remember what I said. The bill I voted for in the Senate gave $6 billion to HMOs. I was not happy with that at all, but at least it gave $6 billion to traditional Medicare to help us do more prevention. Guess what happened. It is gone. The conference committee took it away. But they have added it on to the $6 billion already there. They added $6 billion that was going to go to Medicare. They put it in the HMOs, and they added $2 billion just in case it was not enough money for their friends. Secondly, this bill benefits drug companies and HMOs. There is a gag rule on Medicare price negotiation. I talked a little bit about that before. Medicare has all of these clients. Think about the clout Medicare could have when they call a drug company and say that their drug X, Y, Z is a drug for arthritis and our patients like it; we are going to buy a lot of it for our patients; please give us a deal. Oh, no, the conferees said, Medicare has a gag rule. Watch out. They may do it to the veterans next. The VA can bargain, but Medicare cannot bargain. The drug companies and the HMOs can bargain explicitly. They can bargain, and they can pocket some of the profits that they bargain, but not Medicare. Medicare cannot bargain. There is a gag rule on Medicare. They will stand up on the other side and say: We are not trying to destroy Medicare; we think it is a great program. Just remember Newt Gingrich: Let it wither on the vine. Seniors are expected to spend $1.6 trillion in prescription drugs over the next decade. By the way, there are a lot of pharmaceutical companies and a lot of wonderful research companies in my State. I have a great relationship with them. I support them getting an R&D tax credit; in other words, a tax credit for every penny they put into research and development. Why? Because I think that is important. I support their patents--reasonably support their patent rights. I support research through the NIH very strongly, and a lot of that benefits the drug companies as well. So I work very closely with my biotech companies, with my pharmaceutical companies, but, by God, I do not believe in giving them welfare. Fourteen billion dollars? Is that because we have so much money? Is our deficit not big enough? It is only up to $500 billion in 2\1/2\ years or 3 years. Gee, we could do better. Why do we not make it $600 billion? Do I hear $700 billion? I do not know what has happened, but it is not good. It took us 8 years to balance that budget. The other side said: We want a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. And our side said: Let's just balance it. Why do we need to amend the Constitution? Let's balance it. And President Clinton did that with us over 8 years. Now it is gone. Now we have $14 billion to add to the deficit, and we are not going to let Medicare negotiate for us because, for whatever reason, they are tying Medicare's hand. I think it is because they want Medicare to wither on the vine. That is what Newt Gingrich said. That is the only thing I can come up with. We know the cost of drugs could be lowered if Medicare negotiated those drug prices. One might say, well, maybe, Senator Boxer; that would be highly unusual for Medicare to negotiate with the drug companies. I would say, not at all. Medicare negotiates payments to hospitals. They have done that for years. When the bill left the Senate, there was no prohibition, but now there is. Why? Because they do not want the Medicare drug plan to be able to offer lower prices. They have given the right to negotiate to the private sector. They are going to push seniors into those plans. Just remember where I started from. Just remember, ``wither on the vine,'' and ``follow the money.'' These are some simple concepts. At the end of my statement, just put a little ribbon and tie the bow and everyone will get the picture as to why we are going down a very dangerous path. In this bill, we are going to be giving to HMOs payments above their stated cost to deliver service. Has anyone ever heard of anything like that in their entire life? A firm bids on a contract. They say: We can supply you with X number of widgets for a thousand dollars. On the dot, you get it. You deliver the thousand widgets, I give you $1,000. Here, HMOs are saying: We can deliver health care for patients at a cost of X dollars per patient. In this conference committee, they said: Well, we are going to give them more money than they say they need. It is called a lot of different names, such as premium support. It is payment above and beyond what they said it would cost. So put together the slush fund and the payments above their cost of service and you are scratching your head, saying, maybe I ought to get into this business. I say to people all over the country, small businesspeople who work hard in their business, be it retail or wholesale, you do not have a deal like this. You open up your doors, you go into business, and suddenly Uncle Sam is knocking on the door: Hey, I got a check for you HMOs, $14 billion over 7 years just to stay in the business; and, by the way, we love you so much, we are going to give you dollars above and beyond what you say it costs. And, by the way, no one will catch on. We are going to call these names different things. We are not going to call it a slush fund. So the bill left the Senate. It was a good benefit, a decent benefit, but a modest benefit. It was not perfect, but at least it was a bill on prescription drugs. It came back a benefit for drug companies and HMOs. Somebody said to me there was a hostile takeover in the conference committee of the Medicare bill, that the Senate passed, by the HMOs and the prescription drug companies. If we look at Wall Street, follow the money. Look at the prices of these stocks. They are going out of sight because people know this is a deal of a lifetime, that is for sure. The last point I want to make is that this bill hurts our seniors. I am going to be specific. First, it hurts all our seniors, and in the end I am going to show you how it hurts my seniors in California, the largest State in the Union. These are facts. We have gotten them from the staff that worked on this conference bill. Six million seniors will pay more for prescriptions than they do now. Let me tell you who these people are. Six million low-income and disabled beneficiaries currently receive prescription drug benefits from the Medicaid Program, which is a matching Federal-State program administered by the State. These programs are more generous in coverage than the proposed bill that is before us because they serve our very sickest Americans. For example, a Medicare/Medicaid-eligible person in California can, but does not have to, pay a $1 per prescription copayment. The copayment is voluntary. A dollar may sound like zero, nothing, to people. But if you are an inch away from owning nothing, every dollar counts. Under the conference bill the same person will now be required to make a copayment, maybe, up to $5. Some will pay premiums of $50 and be subject to a strict asset test. Studies have shown that even small copayments for prescription drugs can make essential medicines unaffordable for low-income seniors, resulting in an 88-percent increase in hospitalizations and deaths, and a 78-percent increase in emergency room visits. So they say to my State, now you can't help these poorest of the poor. Sorry. They gave that a name, too, which we will get into later. They give it a nice name, but the bottom line is the people, the poorest of the poor, the States that help them can no longer help them once they get into this program. The copayments to these poorest of the poor are indexed for inflation. So they can and they will go up. Remember, most of these people don't make any money. When you get hit with inflation and you are on a fixed income, that bites. That takes food off the table. So we know there will be an increase in hospitalizations. That was in the background information, that 88-percent increase in hospitalizations and deaths because people will not take their medicine. States are prohibited from covering the out-of-pocket costs of these dual eligibles, and the bill prohibits States from establishing more expansive drug lists for the mentally ill, disabled, and other groups. That is important. They may be taking a drug that isn't covered on this formulary. I want to talk about people with AIDS. We have a high number in our State. People are suffering. Many of them are dual eligibles. They are eligible for Medicare disability and Medicaid. For them this bill is catastrophic. My phones are ringing off the hook with calls from them, their parents, their families. It is likely that they may not have access to or be able to afford all the drugs they need. So this is why this bill is opposed by the AIDS Medicare Project, San Francisco; AIDS Project, Los Angeles; Project Inform, San Francisco; San Francisco AIDS Foundation. But let's face it, it is not just AIDS patients who are going to be harmed. Anyone with a life-threatening illness runs the risk of not having coverage for the drugs they need. If they are denied coverage for these drugs under Medicare, they can appeal the decision, but this doesn't mean they can afford them. So when it comes to my State, I will show you later the numbers of people who will be worse off. It goes in the hundreds of thousands--the hundreds of thousands. Now there is a very cruel asset test. When I voted for the bill in the Senate that the Senator from Iowa worked so hard on with the Senator from Montana, that was a good bill. That bill would have allowed low-income seniors to receive assistance without forcing them to sell a car because it was worth over $4,500 or a ring that maybe was their most precious possession from their loved one or a family heirloom. The conference bill imposes a Draconian asset test of $6,000 per person, $10,000 per couple, for the poorest of the poor. As a result, 3 million low-income seniors nationwide, and 300,000 in California, will be deprived of assistance that would not only help them with their prescription drugs but help them pay the premium so they could receive the coverage in the first place. In other words, the bill that is before us has some generosity towards the poorest of the poor, but they have added an asset test into it so if you have a family heirloom or you own a car worth more than $4,500 or you have a diamond ring and a gold wedding band that your husband may have given you when you were married, you have to sell it. You have to get rid of it. Otherwise you don't get the benefit of this prescription drug benefit. I don't get that. I am sad the conferees didn't go with the bill that most of us voted for in the Senate. Now you come to seniors who are forced into demonstration projects that penalize them for staying in Medicare. That happens in 2010. You say we are just in 2003. We are almost in 2004--that is 6 years away, big deal. One thing I have learned, as long as I have lived, is that time goes fast. Six years will be here. If you are in one of those demonstration projects, what is going to happen is plain and simple: Your premiums are going to go up if you stay in Medicare--bottom line. Even though people say you are not forced into these other plans, the costs may force you into these other plans. One in six Medicare beneficiaries will be forced to participate in this experiment. In California, 12 of its metropolitan statistical areas will qualify for these demonstration projects. Let's say two of the largest are chosen; one is in L.A. and the other is in San Francisco. So what we will have is my seniors in those areas will have to make a very tough choice. Do they stay in Medicare and pay more money or do they go into an HMO and lose the choice of their doctors? We have already had some experimentation. We know the healthy people will choose the HMOs because they are cheaper. After all, they are healthy so they are not worried about getting messed up by an HMO. If they are not sick, you know, it is not a problem. But the sicker seniors would be left in Medicare, and we know that we will see costs spiral out of control because there will be a sick pool of seniors, rather than spreading the risk, which is what insurance is all about. Now we have a situation where premiums for middle and upper class people are going to go up. My colleagues say they are only going to go up if you earn $80,000 a year. I understand that is quite a bit. That is not that many people. But this is the problem. This number of $80,000 a year is not indexed for inflation. So it looks like it is a lot now, but in the future it will not look like it is that big. For example, if this provision, the one that my colleague from Iowa supports, was in place in 1980, the equivalent level of income would be $33,000, and the person at that level would have to pay much more for their Medicare. So the fact is, they have done an interesting thing: They have not indexed this, so in the end you will have people of very moderate incomes paying huge premiums to Medicare. Now what is going to happen? It will wither on the vine because people will say: I don't want anything to do with this. It is too costly. I don't need it. I will just go out and buy a catastrophic policy elsewhere. I will tell you, if you take that fact, along with the fact that this bill sets up health savings accounts for the wealthiest people, you are going to have middle-income people and wealthy people walk away from Medicare, and you will lose the class you have when you have a larger pool. That is just a fact of life. That is why we have had a successful program--because insurance needs a very big pool. I am going to put up a chart that I hope all of you who might be crazy enough to be watching this will remember. I know this isn't exactly prime-time television. But I want to show you a chart of ``Fear and Confusion.'' This is a Barbara Boxer homemade chart. This is the chaos and confusion that our seniors are going to be facing. If any of you are watching this tonight, I am telling you to take note. I am telling you to call the AARP. Senator Durbin gave you the number. I do not know it. I want you to take notes and ask them to explain each of these concepts they have endorsed in this bill. Then I want you to call everyone who votes for this bill, if this bill passes, and call your Senators and ask them to explain what all of this means. I am not going to tell you what it means tonight because we would be here all night. These are the terms that have been thrown around in this bill. You are going to have to understand this if you are going to understand what Congress is about to do to you. You will have to understand this. Confusion and fear--some of them you know; HMO, you know that one. There is fear there, but it has nothing to do with the fact you don't know what Health Maintenance Organization stands for. Risk corridors: I want you to learn what risk corridors mean; copayments, plan retention funding, MA-prescription drug plans, or MA- PD plans; donut hole. No, it is not what you buy in the store that is so good. I am on a diet. I haven't had one of them in a while. But a donut hole is something you had better understand because it is going to cost you when you get to it. Here is another one: MA-Regions; catastrophic, premium support, assets test. I explained that one to you. That is one where you have to sell your wedding band, if you are poor, in order to qualify for getting your drugs free. Average weighted premium; MSP, Medicare Secondary Payment; coordination requirements; initial coverage limit; CMS, you had better know that because the man who is the head of it is the one who is going to control the slush fund for HMOs. Here is one which is kind of my favorite because I actually understand it: Claw back. That is a new word for you. That expresses what happens if you are a State and you have helped your poorest people pay for their Medicaid. You no longer can help them, but you can't keep the money. You have to send it to Uncle Sam. That is a claw back. Transitional assistance, MSA. That stands for Metropolitan Statistical Area. If you are in one of those, you are forced into a demonstration project even if you do not want to be. Benefit shutdown: This is one I know very well. After you buy a certain amount of drugs--around $2,000--you get a letter in the mail from your company that is giving you this drug benefit, and they say: Sorry, sir, your benefits shut down until you go past $5,100. Benefit shutdown is not a good thing. Risk adjustment premiums--you all know what that means; Part D, income relating, SA-wraparound; national bonus payment. But don't get excited. It doesn't go to you. Comparative Cost Adjustment Program; Stabilization Fund--that sounds as if it is a good thing. If you are an HMO, that is the money you get to keep you in business. I tell you, if something happens to me and I am not back here after my next election, which could happen to anybody, I am going to consider helping one of these big HMOs. I understand half of this. I may help them. Medicare advantage competition, wraparound--we did that--MA-regional plans; MA-prescription drugs; annual out-of-pocket threshold. Watch out for that one. Annual out-of-pocket threshold is what you have paid for your drugs out-of-pocket before you can get the benefit. However, if your drug isn't on the formulary, it doesn't count. So don't count on it too soon. Return disclosure: This has to do with your tax return. You are going to have your tax return sent to the IRS from the Health and Human Services Department if you are an upper income senior. They want to know what you earn. Before, Medicare never asked that because it is an insurance program. Now, do you know in this bill that the people who do not like taxes are making sure the IRS receives from the Health and Human Services Department information about your tax return? Deductible: Again, very tricky. You have to understand that. PDP sponsors, Prescription Drug Plan sponsors; monthly benchmarks. I am not sure about that one myself. But monthly benchmarks, we have to be careful about those. Fallback: The fallback is in the prescription drug plan. In the Senate bill that I voted for, if you didn't have two plans come in to compete, you could always fall back to Medicare. Now it is basically one plan. I told you about fallback. I went over all of it. MSP; average weighted premium--I think I pretty well went over this; coverage gap; plan retention funding. The way I have done this chart, it looks kind of chaotic. It is to make a point. I don't even have half of the terms that are in this bill. I am going to work on this so that after the cloture vote when we have a little more debate, I will be able to get a better list. But there is no secret why seniors are calling up our offices. They are smart. They are the smartest folks around. They have lived a long time. They are smart. They know what Newt Gingrich said: Let it wither on the vine. And then he endorses this. They weren't born yesterday. The one thing I was interested in with C-SPAN is the people who were calling were Republicans and Democrats, and they all sounded alike. One out of 10 said they liked the deal. So this bill hurts seniors. We know that for sure. Confusion and fear, large benefit shutdown, which is daunting and penalizes innocent seniors. I told you before. You get to a certain point, and your benefits stop. A couple of thousand dollars, and then it starts up again at $5,000. Name for me one other drug program that does that. I checked it out. There are hundreds of them. Maybe there was one other that had a small benefit. I have never seen it. We don't have that in our plan. We just go in the pharmacy and give them our Senator's health card. We get a good deal. They never shut us down. Why should we shut you down? It is a bad thing. It is not right. If I was a local pharmacist, I would say to my seniors, I can do better than this plan. Come into my store, buy your drugs here, and I will give you a discount card. Seniors will have to worry about filling out this form, filling out that form, is this drug on the formulary, and so on--fear and confusion. The bill hurts seniors. Now we will look at what it does to my State's seniors. This is the direct impact on my State's seniors: 867,000 sick low-income seniors will have worse Medicaid prescription drug coverage. Boom. This starts in 2006 when 867,000 sick low-income seniors will have worse Medicaid prescription drug coverage than now. Mr. President, 250,000 retirees will lose their more generous prescription drug coverage even after we give payments to the employers. I supported that. That was a good move. But even with that, they are dropping coverage once they know their retirees have another option. Wait until those people get the clue that is happening. Years ago we passed a catastrophic medical bill and I remember seniors were attacking Congress people. Wait until they hear they get dropped--retirees who worked all their life, who like their plan and they get dropped. They do not have a choice. If they want prescription drugs they have to come with this plan. Wait until they have to deal with benefit shutdowns. Mr. President, 296,000 fewer low-income seniors will qualify for low- income protections than under the Senate bill because of the assets test that I talked about and lower-qualifying income levels. The poorest of the poor--when compared to what we did in the Senate, the bill I voted for--are worse off. These numbers are huge because I represent a big State. And 230,000 Medicare beneficiaries will pay higher Part B premiums because they are upper middle income and wealthy. That will happen to them. Also, because they are in the MSA or metropolitan statistical area, that demonstration project, 1.4 million could be forced into them as we projected because we have the big metropolitan areas, or be penalized for staying in traditional Medicare because the people who are healthy will go into those private plans and the people who are sick will stay in Medicare and the costs will go up. We have fear and confusion. I don't know how many of these figures are double-counted, so I cannot just add them up. Some of these figures may fit into more than one category, but I can state with certainty a couple of million of my 4 million people on Medicare are going to be worse off with this bill, much worse off. That is a very bad thing to do. I don't know where the votes are. I think they have the votes to pass this. But if seniors across this country got a couple of days--there are about 48 hours to pick up your phone, call your Senator and say: Senator, maybe you are right. But this thing is confusing. I am fearful. Give me a little more time. The bill was just printed and we saw it for the first time the day before yesterday. This bill is bigger than I am, and we got it the day before yesterday. I have shared some of the new bureaucratic ``wordspeak'' in the bill and I have just had a couple of days to look it over. At the least, we should say to our colleagues, put this thing off. We are going to come back in January. This Congress goes 2 years. That is the beauty of it. If it was next year, the legislation would die. But we have 1 more year of this session. What is the rush? Tell your Senator, maybe Senator Boxer is wrong when she says this will hurt me. I am not sure, but she has raised some issues. Change, if it is positive change, is something we all want. But change could be negative, could be disruptive, could cause us to be confused or fearful. What is the problem in taking a little while longer? To be honest, I would love to have the Christmas holiday recess to read every line of this bill. I started to do that. That is how I came up with all of these words, by reading the bill and trying to understand all of this. I did not even scratch the surface. This Senate voted down an Energy bill which I felt, frankly, was in many ways a giveaway for a lot of special interests. And the good that was in it--and there were good things in it--was outweighed by the special interest provisions. We should be here for the public interests, for the people we represent. I remember one of my colleagues saying to me, when someone asked a question about oncology, because there has been some concern about how the oncologists are being treated--someone in the room said, just look, there is a company being traded, a health care company that deals with oncology, and the stock is shooting up. It must be that oncologists are being treated fairly. I used to be a stockbroker. It is not of any interest to me to do things that make the stock of a company go up. Do you know what I want to go up? The stock of the American people, the lives of the American people, the quality of life of the American people, the quality of life of grandmas and grandpas and their families. This is truly not a partisan issue. It is an issue of how do we give a prescription drug benefit to our senior citizens and keep Medicare strong and not make this bill a giveaway to the largest HMO and pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies in the country. They are doing very well. This debate has been a good debate so far. We have serious disagreement. I am sure I will be back in the Senate after we have a cloture vote, one way or the other, just to add more terminology to my fear and confusion chart. I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are waiting with bated breath to see my next version of this fear and confusion chart because I know they understand every single one of these terms. It is interesting to look at these terms and to realize how far reaching and how bureaucratic this new bill is. I will say one last thing and then I will leave the floor, much to the delight of the Senator from Iowa and the Senator from Montana. I say to any senior citizen, any human being who is within the reach of my voice, and there may be a few at this late hour, if you feel we need more time to see whether Senator Boxer is right or Senator Grassley is right or Senator Baucus is right or Senator Kennedy is right or Senator Durbin is right or Senator Hatch is right, if you think you need more time to take a look at this bill, to get this bill analyzed, this bill that weighs a lot, this bill that is over 600 pages, call your Senator, e-mail your Senators and tell them to take some more time, to put this thing over until after the first of the year and we can come back here and have the whole year to work on this bill, which is really rewriting the Medicare Program. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, southern California has recently experienced the devastating impacts of wildfire first-hand. More than 750,000 acres burned, and 24 people died. We have seen how important it is to take the appropriate steps to protect our vulnerable communities from the threat of wildfire, and that is why I am supporting this bill. The bill before us invests in preventing wildfires, rather than just trying to fight them after the fact. Each year, $760 million is authorized for wildfire prevention projects, such as tree and brush removal, thinning, and prescribed burning. In total, the bill would allow treatment of 20 million acres. Priority is given to projects that protect communities and watersheds, and at least 50 percent of the funds must be used near at-risk communities. The other 50 percent will be spent on projects near municipal water supply systems and on lands infested with disease or insects. This is a good start at preventing fires. I do, however, have to mention my deep disappointment with the House Republican conferees for removing my amendment to help firefighters who battle the biggest fires. I am almost speechless that the House Republicans would turn their backs on our brave firefighters. My amendment, which passed the Senate 94 to 3, would have required long-term health monitoring of firefighters who fought fires in a Federal disaster area. These firefighters are exposed to several toxins known to be harmful to long-term health, including fine particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur, formaldehyde, mercury, heavy metals, and benzene. This amendment was important to the firefighters in my State and was supported by the International Association of Firefighters. I pledge to the firefighters, this is not over. I will be back to continue fighting on behalf of all firefighters who are put at risk in Federal disasters. I am also disappointed that the conferees dropped another amendment of mine, which was included in the Senate-passed bill. My amendment required the EPA to provide each of its regional offices a mobile air pollution monitoring network, so that in the event of a catastrophe, toxic emissions could be monitored and the public could know the health risks. Despite the fact that the conferees dropped my two amendments, I believe this bill will help protect communities from the threat of wildfires, which is why I am supporting it.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise to pay homage to the remarkable contributions of Dr. Donald Pinkel and Professor Dr. Hansjorg Riehm to the cure of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, once an invariably lethal disease. On December 4, 2003, distinguished colleagues from 12 nations will honor these outstanding physicians in San Diego, CA. ALL is the most common cancer in children. Forty years ago, very few children were cured. Since that time, the cure rate has improved dramatically. I am informed that thanks in part to the leadership and vision of Dr. Pinkel and Professor Dr. Hansjorg Riehm, about 80 percent of ALL patients are now cured in developed nations. Dr. Pinkel's development of effective presymptomatic central nervous system therapy and Professor Dr. Hansjorg Riehm's development of effective post induction intensification halved the number of relapses and deaths. Tens of thousands of children, their families, friends and neighbors in many countries have benefitted. Dr. Pinkel and Professor Dr. Riehm stand united in their desire that effective therapy be available to children with ALL, both in the developed world and in the developing world. I am informed that during his years at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in the 1960s, Dr. Pinkel introduced the concept of presymptomatic central nervous system therapy and cured one-half of children with ALL. Previously, many children had achieved temporary remission from leukemia, only to suffer return of leukemia or relapse in the central nervous system, subsequent bone marrow relapse, and death. Presymptomatic central nervous system therapy remains a cornerstone of ALL therapy throughout the world. Professor Dr. Hansjorg Riehm and his colleagues in the Berlin Frankfurt Munster Group introduced effective postinduction intensification in the late 1970s. This concept involves implementing stronger therapy after the patient is in remission. Previously, patients received brief intensive induction therapy followed by presymptomatic central nervous system therapy and prolonged mild maintenance therapy. Most patients achieved remission, but many suffered leukemic relapse and death. With application of effective post induction intensification, the number of relapses fell and the chance for cure increased. Professor Riehm's strategy of post induction intensification has been applied throughout the world with similar success. We know how tragic it is when children and their families struggle with life-threatening disease. The dramatic improvement in the cure rate of ALL gives children and those who cherish them just cause for greater hope. Literally tens of thousands of children in many nations have survived and grown up to realize their hopes and dreams due to the remarkable contributions of Dr. Pinkel and Professor Dr. Riehm. I am certain that children's lives are ample thanks, but I would like to add California's thanks for these physicians' lifetimes of accomplishments. Our Nation and world are fortunate to have benefitted from their work.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Fifteen to twenty minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the net result of this could be that no one will ever have to clean up the air until someone else cleans it up. It is unacceptable. Ozone pollution must be cleaned up. There are 130 million Americans living in communities that violate ozone smog clean air safeguards. Inhalation of smog is linked to respiratory illness, such as asthma, especially for children. There you have that mother, as a matter of fact, in the hospital with her child because hospital admissions for children due to asthma alone increased 30 percent between 1980 and 1999. Overall admissions for respiratory problems increased 20 percent in the same time period. We had a 30-percent increase in asthma admissions in hospitals, but only a 20-percent increase for other things. Let me say to all my colleagues who might be listening, and even to those who might read my remarks, go to any school in your State--it could be a public school, it could be a private school, it matters not--ask the children to raise their hands if they have asthma. Ask them to keep their hands up or new hands for someone who knows someone who has asthma or someone in their family, and you will see almost 40 percent of the children in that classroom respond. In California alone, there will be 42,000 additional asthma attacks, 499 additional hospital admissions, and 68,000 lost schools days. What are we doing in an Energy bill to help those children? Are we going to clean energy? Of course not. Are we even moving to increase the fuel economy of our cars by 2 miles per gallon or 3 or 4 or 5? Are we? No, of course not. This is a bill for big oil. We do a little bit for hybrid vehicles. I am glad. We do a little bit for solar. But $28 billion to $1 billion in favor of big oil, big nuclear--big, big, big, big, dirty. Clean water rollbacks: This might surprise you. This is an Energy bill. We have clean water rollbacks in this bill. The oil and gas industry is exempted from storm water runoff cleanup. This conference report contains language exempting oil and gas construction activities, including roads, drill pads, pipelines, and refineries from obtaining a permit and controlling their pollution runoff as required under the Clean Water Act. Explain to me why this is necessary. Are these some poor startup companies that need our help and, oh, for a while we will let them be free of these requirements? No, these are multinational big companies that have fought so hard that we no longer have a real, important Superfund Program anymore because they don't even want to be taxed a tiny bit to clean up the mess they made. This bill gives them more rollbacks. They don't have to worry about clean air and clean water. What is going on here? Then the chairman of the committee says: Oh, there will never be another bill; kill this bill and you will never see another Energy bill. Forget about ethanol. Forget about tax breaks for the things you believe in that might work because you will never get them. You are going to have to swallow all this bad stuff to get a bill. I want to talk about some more of the bad items, and I will close on the MTBE issue. Here is a picture of our country. All the States in black--and, Mr. President, I know this is an issue that is near and dear to you--all the States in black are the States that have either ground water contamination from MTBE or drinking water contamination. The ones with the little orange stickers have drinking water contamination. Sad to say, my State has an orange sticker. When this came to me, I was stunned to hear that my town of Santa Monica in southern California had lost one-half of its drinking water. When the town tried to figure out what to do about it, they found out it would cost millions of dollars--$200 million to $400 million to clean up. This is a small city, relatively speaking in terms of California. We are a big State, but it is a relatively small city--$200 million. They said: Oh, my God, what are we going to do? They did what every other city, every other county, every other water agency is going to have to do, be they in New Hampshire, be they in Minnesota, be they in Iowa, be they in Nebraska, be they in Nevada. They went to court. They filed a lawsuit, and they made a claim and said: Please, to the people who put this in our gasoline and it got into our water, please, help us clean it up. That is Santa Monica. Many of you know of Lake Tahoe. It is a magnificent lake and a beautiful lake. It was getting polluted with MTBE. MTBE was leaking from the boats that were on the water into the lake. They went to court. They tried to sue under three grounds--nuisance, negligence, defective product liability. The judge in that case said on the nuisance claim: You haven't proved nuisance because you have to prove who did what to whom, when, and what day. Negligence, same thing. You have to find the people, you have to track the people. But defective product liability, that makes sense because in discovery they learned-- that is a legal term when they are getting ready for the court case-- they learned that the makers of MTBE knew this product was bad. As a matter of fact, they joked about it. I forget what exactly they said. One of them said: Major threat to better earnings, MTBE, because they knew some day the truth would come out. They joked about it. We found that out. Here is the jury verdict on the Lake Tahoe case. They found the makers of MTBE knew beforehand that this was bad. This is the verdict: MTBE was defective in design because they failed to warn of its environmental risks. Gasoline containing MTBE refined by the other defendants at trial was defective in design because the environmental risks from MTBE outweighed the benefits and refiners failed to warn of its known risks. The refiners failed to warn, failure to warn. There is clear and convincing evidence that the companies acted with malice-- acted with malice--as they developed, promoted, and distributed their defective MTBE product. I say in the strongest of terms, when you are told and I am told that these companies acted with malice, why on God's green Earth would we give them a get-out-of-jail-free card in this bill? They acted with malice. They knew it was poison, and now this bill is saying, this bill that was written by two people of the same party behind closed doors from big oil States: You are off the hook. I also want to tell you that the cost of MTBE contamination--this is a 2-year old estimate--is $29 billion. That is what this cost 2 years ago. We are looking at probably 50, 75, to 100 because all those States I showed you before are just now beginning to understand how dangerous this contamination is. This bill is an unfunded mandate on New Hampshire. This bill is an unfunded mandate on California. This bill is an unfunded mandate on 43 out of our 50 States that have MTBE contamination. Now, you can dress it up, you can make it look pretty, you can put lipstick on it and rouge, but the bottom line is, it is ugly. It is an ugly thing to do to the people. I will show my colleagues our little ``get out of jail free card.'' Here it is: MTBE producers not responsible for pollution, get out of jail free. Is this why I came to the Senate? No. It certainly is not why the Senator from New Hampshire came, and it should not be why any of us came--to give a ``get out of jail free card'' to the very polluters who have harmed our people. Senator Domenici talks about how many people are for this bill. I understand that. But the fact is that the League of Cities are against this bill, the National Association of Counties are against this bill, the Water Agency is against this bill, the Association of Metropolitan Water Districts, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the list goes on. This bill should not be passed. This bill should never be passed. This bill is a giveaway to the biggest multinational corporations, to encourage them to do things they should not be doing. This bill rolls back environmental laws. In summation, there were jokes on the floor about those of us who want to stop this bill because of MTBE, that we are taking some small step here, that this is not important. Well, this is important. When people cannot drink the water coming out of their tap and they have to go buy bottled water, this is important. This is important when people are fearful that their kids are going to get cancer from MTBE. Remember, no matter what they say, the Government never mandated MTBE. The Government mandated an oxygenate. The oil companies picked MTBE and they kept using it after they knew it was dangerous. By the way, they even used it before an oxygenate was mandated. If we can just put up that map one more time, I would like the Senator from Vermont to see this because he has not seen it as clearly as this. His State of Vermont has MTBE, as he knows, in the ground water; luckily, we do not think in the drinking water yet, but who knows. The orange shows the States where it is actually in the drinking water. My friend from Vermont, who stands every day for justice, for the people of this country, understands why we have to stop this bill. I thank the Chair for his hard work in representing his State so well on this really tough issue, and I hope we have a chance to stop this bill in its tracks, send it back and have it come back without some of these provisions that are so harmful to the very people we are supposed to help, the people of the United States of America. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, there is so much to say about this Energy bill, I hope I am able to be coherent on why I think it ought to be defeated. It is a bill, first of all, that is a tax giveaway to the biggest corporations in this country. Actually, the multinational corporations--$30 billion is the size of the giveaway; $30 billion of debt. When this administration came into power, we had a surplus. Now we are reaching a $500 billion deficit. This is adding $30 billion to it. The attitude around here is, just let our kids and grandkids pick up that deficit. It is absolutely the wrong policy for right now. This bill is an unfunded mandate because it gives a free ride to the makers of a poisonous chemical called MTBE that never was mandated by any government and was the oxygenate of choice of the oil companies. They knew it was poisonous and they kept on putting it into the gasoline. It has contaminated water systems all over this country. By walking away from this problem and giving a pass to the people who polluted our areas, in my opinion--and this is just my own words--I think it is immoral. That is why we have the cities of this country against this bill, the counties of this country against this bill, the water agencies of this country against this bill. The more we let this bill hang out there, the more it smells. MTBE smells. This bill has a similar smell, a sour smell, a bad smell, a poison smell. The chairman of the committee wrote this bill with one other person in a locked room. It is extraordinary. I thought when I went to school that I learned a bill becomes a law this way: They pass a bill in the House, they pass a bill in the Senate. If they are different, there is a conference committee. The conference committee is made up of people from both sides of the aisle, both bodies. They cannot add new and extraneous things into the bill that were not at least in one of the bodies--the Senate or the House. Then it goes back to each respective House of Congress. If it is passed, it goes on to the President's desk. We have a bill, therefore, that would be a compromise, that would be genuine, which would reflect the broad views of the conferees and, therefore, by extension, all sides of the debate reflected among the American people. What did we have in this case? Two people of the same party from big oil States sitting in a room having a party. And what we are going to have if this bill passes is one huge party, with the biggest corporations in this country, the oil companies, nuclear--believe me, they will not be drinking water tainted with MTBE. They will be drinking the bubbly stuff, and it might even be imported. But it will be expensive. This bill is expensive. Thirty billion dollars is added on to our debt from the very people who say we have to be fiscally responsible. Then the chairman of the committee says, in a most angry fashion, and it is his right--I am angry, a little bit different type of anger--says in his angry way: If you do not take this, you will never have another Energy bill because I am not going to do it. This is a government of laws, not men. We can have a good Energy bill if we defeat this bill. We can have one that looks toward the future. We can have an Energy bill that is a 21st century Energy bill, not an Energy bill that is a 20th century Energy bill. So the sky will not fall for my friends who want ethanol. And I understand they want that. By the way, there are some good provisions in there for my State regarding making ethanol out of rice straw. I worked for those provisions. I am going to go through this bill: What is good in the bill, what is bad in it, and what is left out. I worked hard to examine this bill. But when all is said and done, it is an Energy bill that is a giveaway to the special interests of this country. It is an Energy bill which turns its back on people on the west coast who suffered from companies that ripped us off and owe us $9 billion just in California alone. It is an Energy bill that really just gives a wink and a nod to some of the possible ways that we can work ourselves out of dependence on foreign oil. Now, again, the chairman of the committee is very ecstatic about this bill, and it is his right. Why wouldn't he be? He wrote it. He likes big oil. He is defending the makers of MTBE. He loves nuclear energy. The last I checked, we still do not have a safe way to dispose of the waste from nuclear powerplants. The last time I checked, in some places in Europe they are beginning to close down nuclear powerplants. Oh, but we are going to build a new one--we, the taxpayers, $1 billion, as I understand it--in Idaho. Now we have reports--we were going to send all of our nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain--and now we hear, in Nevada, a new scientific report saying, watch out, that material can leak. So this is not the time to be subsidizing the building of nuclear powerplants. My God, you would think this is the 1940s after World War II, ``Atoms for Peace.'' It does not work. By the way, I hope taxpayers understand that what is also in this bill is a 20-year extension of the Price-Anderson Act. What is that, you ask? That takes the nuclear companies off the hook if there is a nuclear accident. They pay for some of the damage but the mammoth amount of damage, which could go escalating to God knows where, you taxpayers are picking up the tab. So first you are building them the nuclear powerplant. Then, if there is an accident, you have to pick up the tab. This is some Energy bill. This is the worst bill. I cannot think of the names--let's hear what some of the editorials are saying from around the country for this great Energy bill. USA Today: ``Congress forgets promises made in blackout's wake.'' The Brattleboro Reformer: ``It's time to shift gears.'' The Billings Gazette: ``Energy bill lacks critical balance.'' The Boston Globe: ``A polluted energy bill.'' The Brunswick Times Record: ``This energy bill is appalling.'' That was their word. The Buffalo News: ``Oil and grease. Energy bill fails country as it dispenses favors to the industry.'' The Cape Cod Times: ``Misused energy.'' Des Moines Register--now imagine, this is in a place where they love the ethanol issue, and even with that, this is what they say: ``The MTBE outrage.'' And I will go into how the MTBE outrage impacts my State. The Fort Worth Star Telegram: ``Coming up short.'' The Great Falls Tribune: ``Senate should stall Energy Policy Act of 2003.'' Absolutely they are right. Count me in. I am going to try to stall this bill. I am going to try to kill this bill. I am going to try to stop this bill in every single way I can because it is bad for the people I represent and it is not the kind of bill we want for this country at this time. Jackson Clarion-Ledger: ``A `P' Perfect Bill: Pork, Politics, Pollution.'' That is a good one. Lakeland Ledger: ``Senate, derail the energy bill.'' The Los Vegas Sun: ``Mixed bag on national energy plan.'' The Lewiston Sun: ``Proposed law is lousy legislation.'' Their words. Memphis Commercial Appeal: ``Pork barrel bill, not worth the energy.'' Missoula Missoulian: ``Energy bill uses tax dollars for fuel. Legislation larded with massive subsidies is a parity of effective energy legislation.'' That is from the Deep South. The Nashua Telegram: ``Rushing energy bill is a bad way to set policy.'' New Jersey Star Ledger: ``Defeat GOP energy bill.'' Orange County Register--and this is in a part of my State that is predominantly Republican--do you know what they write? ``Energy bill is a waste.'' Palm Beach Post: ``A powerless public.'' The Phoenix Arizona Republic: ``Energy overload. Overstuffed bill has it all, except coherent national policy.'' I just have to say, the more this bill is subjected to the light of day, out of that closed-door conference committee, with two people from the same party, from big oil States--the longer that bill sees the light of day, the more people will see it. Now, yes, there are a few good things in this bill. I am going to tell you what they are. I am going to show you what they are. Then I am going to show you what was left out of it. And then I am going to talk about the bad things in the bill. A good thing: Drilling in the Arctic Refuge in Alaska is not in this bill. As the person who wrote the amendment that stopped it before, I say thank you to all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who stood tall and said: We will never allow this to be put in an Energy bill. Thank you. That is a good thing. No offshore inventory of oil--I thank the House on that one. My friend Lois Capps over there was fighting hard. You cannot go into a pristine coastline that is supposed to have a moratorium on it and then drill to see how much oil there is in it. Either it is pristine and it is left alone, and there is a moratorium to keep it left alone, or you might as well just go in and destroy it. The conferees said no to that because that would have been a poison pill, too. So thank you. It is not in there. Something that is in there that I wrote has to do with incentives for making ethanol from agricultural waste. Now, this is something that is forward looking because we have rice straw and biowaste and sugar waste from beets and we know we can use that waste to compete with corn ethanol. We think it is exciting. If we can develop those industries in our State, then we do not have to ship that corn ethanol all the way across from the Midwest. That kind of shipping is going to add to the price of gasoline for my people who need to have their cars to go to work. Energy efficiency by the Federal Government--I am very pleased we have that in this bill. That is an important thing to undertake. Hybrid car tax credit--ditto. It is good. Increased funding for energy assistance in LIHEAP--for the poorest of the poor. That is good. I understand there are some solar tax credits in there, which I think are very important, to put solar energy on some kind of equilibrium. These provisions are very small. Now, this is what is missing from this bill which would have made it at least relevant to what has happened in our country. There are no refunds for the people of my State. We have been told by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that we have been ripped off, robbed. They have stolen our money with phony schemes to create artificial shortages. You all remember some of those schemes. The fact is, FERC, which can order these refunds, has refused to do so. This administration refuses to order FERC to get those refunds back to our people. Our new Governor has his hands full with tremendous deficits. That is our money, and we want it back. No, they would not go there. No. 2, there are no long-term contract renegotiations for my State or other States on the west coast. What does that mean? These thieving companies, as they were robbing us blind, and had us over a barrel, negotiated long-term contracts for the future. They said: Oh, we are giving you a good deal. We are going to charge you a lot less than the spot price. Well, we were negotiating with them under duress. It was a phony price. A phony price was out there, and our Governor was trying to get the best deal. Yes, he got a lot lower than the current price, but it was way over what the market is today. So we are asking for new long-term contracts. We want to do away with those. No, they didn't do that. No end to electricity market manipulation schemes: Ron Wyden was very good on that point. We had schemes that had every name in the book. They made up names that you can't even believe. The one I hated the most was Get Shorty. Because I am a little person, I hated the name. But they were shorting us of electricity. They were doing all these things, and they were giving them all these names. By the way, why isn't someone in jail on all of that Enron stuff? No, we didn't go there. No CAFE standards: Unbelievable. It has been pointed out that even China, that has a bad environmental record--I went there; they are building dams that are destroying mountains and homes and valleys, I just got sick to see it--has set CAFE standards because they know pollution is bad for their people. When cars pollute, kids get asthma, workers get sick. And if you can't work, that hurts productivity. It is just common sense. Forget the fact that it is the right thing to do to have CAFE standards and spare the air. No, they couldn't do this. There is a huge SUV loophole. It was about $25,000, and in the last tax bill it went up to $100,000. The Senate tried to bring it back to $25,000 but the House rejected that effort. No increased use of renewable sources for electricity: They walked away from the formula that Senator Bingaman had gotten into the Senate bill. By the way, any resemblance between this Energy bill that is before us and the Energy bill the Senate wrote is purely coincidental. This is a completely different bill, written by two people from big oil States, who love nuclear energy and have walked away from fighting for the consumer. It is a sad thing. This is what is missing from the bill. Now let me tell you what is bad about the bill. Unfortunately, it is a long list. We talked about giveaways to the oil industry. I want to give you a few examples of that: $10.5 billion in tax breaks would be provided to the oil and gas industries. The bill provides millions of dollars' worth of subsidies to the oil industry by reducing the amount of royalties--that is kind of like rent--that they have to pay to drill off our coasts and on our Federal lands. So they use our Federal land that all the American people own. They are supposed to pay royalties when they find oil there. This bill provides royalty relief for marginal oil and gas wells or wells that are relatively less productive. They give this royalty relief to oil and gas development off the coast of Alaska as well as deep wells and deep water operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Wake up, America. If you want to count, listen to these things. One of the things that I find happens, I went on TV and I did an interview on one of the issues we are going to be talking about, MTBE. The person interviewing me said: I know this is very complex but let's discuss it. It isn't complex. It is pretty simple. This bill is a giveaway to the biggest companies. It walks away from the consumers. It lets the polluters go free. It is a 20th century Energy bill. People say it is confusing; it is complicated. It is not so complicated. That is the way to say to people: You better tune out the argument; it is too complicated. America, tune in. It is your future. It is your kids who are going to have to pay this $30 billion. It is your kids who are going to have to breathe the dirty air. It is your kids and your cities that are going to have to pick up the tab to clean up MTBE. So listen. The bill would also reimburse energy companies for their costs to reclaim abandoned wells on Federal lands under a new program forcing taxpayers to pay these costs rather than industry. It would provide a broad liability waiver to oil and gas operators reclaiming sites on Federal lands. So they go on the Federal lands. They mess them up. They pollute them. They walk away. These are our lands. The bill will take $150 million from royalties and fund research on ultradeep wells, unconventional natural gas petroleum, and the Federal Government may well give $50 million extra to this fund. This research would be done to benefit the industry. You know what, let them pay for their own R&D. They get a great tax break. I am all for it. I give big tax breaks for R&D. We don't have to give them cash on the barrel. Giveaways to the nuclear industry: I mentioned before the Price Anderson Act. If there is a nuclear catastrophe, don't worry about it, we will pick up the tab. Your children will pick up the tab, my children, my grandchildren. Not the nuclear industry, a 20-year extension. If it is so safe, why can't they get insurance in the private sector for the possible damage it would do? I believe in checks and balances. The insurance companies are checks and balances. If a nuclear person comes in to an insurance company and sits down and says: Well, I might have an accident. What would it cost? Oh, $100 billion. Well, I won't cover you for more than $10 billion. It would just break our back. Oh, OK. Maybe that is a signal, Uncle Sam, that this isn't safe yet. No, we are going to back up the nuclear industry for another 20 years. It raises the cap, which is a good thing, but it is still a cap nonetheless. They don't have to pay full insurance premiums. Why should they? This bill is for them. It is not for us. If there were an accident, nuclear companies don't have to pay the costs of the damages because the taxpayers are on the hook. That is a great idea. A $6 billion production tax break is in here for utility companies that operate new nuclear reactors. So while they are closing down nuclear reactors in Europe and while we are reading reports that Yucca Mountain is not safe, we are going to give tax incentives for new nuclear reactors. It goes on on the nuclear side, but I will move on to one more point here: public health and the environment. The placing of these nuclear plants is just not going to live up to the highest level of protection. There is concern to me in terms of dumping the waste and the injuries that could occur due to the fact that we don't know what to do with the waste. These people want to give tax breaks for dirty industry--$29 billion in tax incentives for the energy industry, and more than 70 percent of the tax breaks go to polluting and mature industries, including coal, oil, gas, and nuclear. Yes, we gave some tax benefits to some of the new and clean energy but very small in comparison. It is $1.8 billion for the clean technologies versus $28 billion; it is about 28 to 1. That is a 20th century Energy bill. Now, we repealed consumer protections in the electricity market. That is another thing that is bad. The most eloquent Senator I have heard on this of all time is Senator Maria Cantwell. I am sure if she hasn't spoken already, she will explain to you what this means. I have to say that the Senator from New Mexico, who wrote this bill, with the Congressman from Louisiana, a big oil, big nuclear power State--he said: This is your last chance. You will never get to repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act if you don't do it today. I have one word for that: Wrong. We are going to be here every day. If he doesn't like PUHCA, you can try to do it another day, just like he can try to get his nuclear money another day, just like he can do tax giveaways another day, just like he can give a liability waiver to his big oil friends another day. You don't have to pass this bill today. That is the biggest bunch of baloney I have ever heard. We are supposed to be working here all year. We don't have to pass this today or tomorrow or the next day. I hope we will not because this Public Utility Holding Company Act is the main law to protect consumers from market manipulation and fraud and abuse in the electricity sector. It is unbelievable that we have uncovered evidence about what Enron did, and we are repealing the one law that could help us in the future. It is, to me, outrageous. Again, I will leave that for Senator Maria Cantwell to talk about. We see drilling and development of our public lands. In my State, I have to tell you that this bill has a special interest provision to site a high voltage electricity transmission line through the Cleveland National Forest. The State of California, through the PUC, said, no, it is not needed and not wanted. I wonder why, in the midst of the terrible fire that we just had, we are now going to put a high voltage line through a national forest. Can someone tell me why? Can someone tell me why we would permit the siting of a high voltage electricity transmission line through a national forest? I will tell you why. It is a special interest provision, and the State didn't want it and the local people didn't want it. The State said no, but somebody put that into the bill. The more you read the bill, the more you learn. The bill would also put the Department of Energy in charge of permitting rights of way across public lands for utility corridors. The bill would require the Department of the Interior to process applications for permits to drill for oil and gas on Federal lands within 30 days, even though people said we need more time to look at the facts. So the USGS would be required to identify restrictions and impediments to oil and gas development. They are allowed to look at fish and wildlife, cultural and historic values, and other public resources. In other words, they can call these things ``restrictions'' and ``impediments'' when, in fact, the law has always said they should be respected. Now they are impediments. Diminished protection for our coasts: The first provision would grant the Secretary of the Interior broad new authority to permit energy development and support facilities anywhere on the Outer Continental Shelf. Authorized facilities would include those that support exploration, development, production, transportation, or storage of oil and gas. There are no standards for issuing or revoking easements, and the provision does not require consultation with the Secretary of Commerce. There is no requirement that the Secretary of the Interior even consult with the States before making this decision on the Outer Continental Shelf. I will explain the Outer Continental Shelf. The first 3 miles off of the coast are State waters. Where does the Outer Continental Shelf start? It starts after that. So you can, as a State, put all the restrictions on damaging projects that would occur because you believe your coastline is God-given. You believe your coastline is also an economic resource. You believe that your coastline and your ocean is important to protect the fish because, in fact, it is a big industry in my State. You do all these protective things. Now they are going to say it is 4 miles out, or 3 miles plus an inch, and they are going to start looking on that Outer Continental Shelf and destroying it. This is what is in there. They weaken the coastal zone, which is important to weigh in on what should be done. Section 325 of the Energy bill erodes States' rights to review and respond to Federal decisions affecting coastal waters. Section 330 would also reduce States' rights to review and comment on pipelines and other energy-related projects off their coast by limiting appeals. It is taking me a long time to tell you what is bad in this bill. There are more things, but I want to give you a sense of some of them. Clean air rollbacks: Actually, they have amended the Clean Air Act. They have amended the Clean Air Act in this Energy bill. ``Great news'' for the American people. I am sure they are dancing in the streets that the Clean Air Act has been rolled back in this bill that was written by two people of the same party from big oil States, behind closed doors, who are threatening that we will never see the light of day on any Energy bill if we don't pass their ``masterpiece.'' The last I heard, every Senator is equal to every other Senator. There is a provision tucked into this conference report designed to delay cleaning ozone pollution in some of the most polluted areas of our country. Under the Clean Air Act, the schedule is established for areas to clean up their air. How much they have to do, and in what timeframe, depends on how dirty or clean their air is. If these deadlines are missed, an area is bumped up into the worst air quality category. When this happens, a greater amount of air pollution must be reduced and additional requirements are imposed, but on a longer timeframe. This provision will allow areas to avoid the additional requirement if some of the air pollution comes from upwind areas. Why this provision and why now? Because the Republicans are trying to overturn several court decisions holding that this type of an extension is illegal under the Clean Air Act. Their argument says it is unfair for a community to be forced to clean up air pollution coming from somewhere else. Unfortunately, it appears that every community with poor air quality can meet this test because ozone pollution travels in the air. Somebody is going to be able to say we don't have to clean up our air because it is coming from somewhere else. Who gets hurt? The people who breathe the air. Why would we delay cleaning up the air as it gets worse and worse? Do you think a child who is in a hospital because of asthma--do you think the mom will say: Why does my kid have asthma? And the doctor will say: Because the air is filthy dirty. And she will say: Oh, my God. That is awful. I am going to write my Senator. Then the Senator writes and says: Your kid has asthma from dirty air, but it wasn't coming from your community. It came from another community, so please forgive us. Wrong. This is what is done in this bill. Remember, this was written by two people of the same party from big oil States. (Mr. SUNUNU assumed the Chair.)

Mrs. BOXER. There is no particular time set.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I discuss why I am voting against cloture on the FAA Reauthorization bill. This bill includes some very good provisions, including funding for our Nation's airports and two provisions that I was able to include in this bill--certification of flight attendant anti-terrorism training and allowing trained cargo pilots to carry guns in the cockpit. However, these good provisions do not make up for the threat to the safety of air travel that this bill will cause. On June 12, 2003, Senator Lautenberg's amendment to the FAA bill passed 56 to 41. His amendment, which I supported, would have prevented the Administration from privatizing the U.S. air traffic control system. The House bill had a similar provision. However, during the conference process the provisions in both bills were ignored. This summer, Republican conference leaders filed a conference report that specifically sanctioned privatization at up to 69 airports, some of which are the busiest in the country in terms of flight operations. For instance, Van Nuys airport in California is the eighth busiest airport in the country in terms of flight operations. When that clearly did not have the support of the Congress, the conference report was rewritten, and the privatization language was dropped. But, the language prohibiting privatization was not reinserted, and the administration has indicated it intends to go forward. Privatizing the controllers is a bad idea. The system is not broken, and we should not try to ``fix'' it. Our air traffic controllers did a valiant job after the terrorist attacks on September 11 by closing air space and by landing all of the planes safely. We should not mess with success. Safety must be a top priority in air travel. Privatization puts that safety at risk.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Well, here we go, more of complaining and more upset from the other side. They just did not get 100 percent of what they wanted. They only got 98 percent. The score is 168 to 4. Other charts can be printed, but here is the truth. Do my colleagues want to see it another way? Here are the names of the people we have confirmed to the Federal bench for George Bush, 168 strong, and there are 4 we believe are out of the mainstream, who we believe would actually hurt the rights of our people to privacy, to dignity, to fairness, to justice, and we have stood up and we have said, no. The other side cannot believe they did not get 100 percent of what they wanted. Maybe in their life they get 100 percent of what they want. Most of us do not. Most of us work hard for what we believe and we are happy to get maybe close to what we want. We have more complaining and more bickering, more upset, 30 hours taken away from other issues. This is where we are. We even had Senator Graham stand up and throw out this fact: No one is going to apply for judgeships. No one is going to apply for lifetime judgeships that pay a lot of money because Democrats stood up and said 4 did not meet the test of fairness, 4 were outside the mainstream and, yes, 168 were fine. So now people are not going to apply for judgeships anymore? Well, if I spoke to someone who said, do you think I ought to apply for a judgeship, the first thing I would say is, well, your odds are pretty good, 168, and only 4 did not make it. So I would say your chances are pretty good. Then we hear all this talk about we Democrats are doing something different, we have never filibustered, never, even though on the Senate Web site itself there is discussion that there have been filibusters, and Chuck Schumer put that in the Record. Let me read something much more recent than that one. This is just a couple of years ago, when we had the Berzon and the Paez nominations. The other side today is saying those were not filibusters. Well, let's hear what Republican Bob Smith said as he launched, yes, a filibuster. I wish my colleagues would listen, but it is okay, their minds are made up. He said: It is no secret that I have been the person who has filibustered these two nominees. Let me say that again. A couple of years ago, Bob Smith said: It is no secret that I have been the person who has filibustered these two nominees, Judge Berzon and Judge Paez. The issue is, why are we here? What is the role of the Senate in judicial nominations? The Constitution gives the Senate the advise-and- consent role. We are supposed to advise the President and consent if we think the judge should be put on the court. Republican Bob Smith, who led the filibuster against two Californians, goes on to say--do I remember it? It is etched in my mind forever. These were two terrific people who were held up, one for 4 years and one for 2 years, and then we finally got them to the floor and Bob Smith launched a filibuster saying a filibuster in the Senate has a purpose. It is not simply to delay for the sake of delay. It is to take the time to debate, to find out about what judges' thoughts are, et cetera. Can we please not have a debate over whether the other side ever launched a filibuster? They admitted it. I ask unanimous consent that this be printed in the Record at this time.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, how many minutes do I have?

Mrs. BOXER. Just finishing up my minute, this proves my point that they want to complain about four judges who already have jobs. But they do not want to deal with the people who are unemployed and this terrible economic situation we have in our country today.

Mrs. BOXER. Was there an objection?

Mrs. BOXER. So here we see the problems. We have lost jobs. You do not want to talk about that. I think right now I ought to ask unanimous consent that the Senate now return to legislative session and proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 3, S. 224, the bill to increase the minimum wage, that the bill be read the third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.